Joao Winckler

Tomato foliage when you brush past the plants. That sharp green smell is completely unique. Also rain hitting dry soil after a long dry spell in summer, nothing quite like it.

Zone 8ish, southwest UK. October is mainly garlic time for me, get it in before the ground goes too cold. Also cutting back the raspberry canes and moving anything I want to overwinter into the polytunnel. Everything else just gets cleared and mulched and left to sort itself out.

Mine have always been the red-topset kind but I've noticed the two-tier thing Megan mentions too, never managed to get seed from them either, the bulbils always seem to win. Would be curious to grow a white one alongside and see if there's any taste difference between them.

The oxidation thing is probably more of an issue with fine materials like bare compost sitting exposed in windy spots. A thicker mulch layer tends to insulate itself. Matthew's hugel results in Oakley back that up, if it was oxidizing away quickly he wouldn't have had the moisture retention he did.

Leaving it a bit longer going into winter is generally fine, gives some insulation to the roots. The main thing to avoid is leaving it really long and matted, which can cause snow mold if you get a wet cover. Somewhere in the middle is usually where I land.

The point about cost is fair honestly. Logan Labs plus shipping plus amendments adds up pretty quick, and then you're waiting a couple of seasons to know if anything actually shifted. I went down the Albrecht rabbit hole a few years back and found it genuinely interesting but hard to know what moved the needle versus just time and compost. The tissue testing angle makes sense if you want something more actionable.

Wire cloches around the base have worked best for me, just a rough circle of chicken wire staked down. Chickens give up on it after a while once they realise they can't get in. The mobile electric net idea above is good if you've got the space for it, more flexible long term.

The spiral pruning idea is one I hadn't come across before, interesting approach. For a small patio I'd lean toward overhead wires between two posts though, grapes grow up and out of the way and you get some nice shade in summer as a bonus.

You know you're a seed saver when you've got unlabelled envelopes of mystery seeds in every drawer and genuinely believe you'll remember what they are by spring.

Same thing with my polytunnel, Nancy. Let a few go to seed last year and this summer I had a decent amount just appearing in between the tomatoes. Didn't interfere at all, just needed to thin a bit in the denser spots. Mizuna does this even better in my experience, pretty hard to get rid of once it decides it likes a spot.